Arequipa

On arrival in Arequipa yesterday morning we attempted to walk to our hostel. It was a lot hotter than expected being so high and the air was very very dry. The area around the station wasn't great and as we didn't want to get fobbed off we walked a little further away, and into what we had hoped was town, to look at a map. We then realised just how far the centre of town was and decided it required a taxi. Back to the station we went! We drove towards the centre of town in a pretty shabby taxi, but as we got closer to the center it was clear that the city here was not shabby at all. In fact, it was far nicer than the parts of Lima that we had seen. A lot cleaner and just far more peaceful, despite still being bustling. The streets are all shiny cobbles or slats and the buildings are very similar too. They are all very old and charming with lots of archways and large wooden doors. Lots of the buildings are painted in bright colours and there are colourful flowers all over. It's very pretty and collonial.

The other thing to note about Arequipa is that it is surrounded in pretty much all direction by three volcanoes, in fact, I have since learnt that it is often referred to as the city of volcanoes, and you can really see why. The whole place is dominated by their backdrop and it is breath-taking. We can see two from our hostel room and they really are amazing. They tower in the distance, one snow capped and a little flatter, I think it is called Pichu Pichu, and the other is a perfectly domed volcano called El Misti!

Of the volcanoes, Chachani is considered to be dormant, Pichu Pichu inactive, but El Misti is one of the most well known and active in Peru, apparently making it one of the worlds most dangerous...eeek! (The last eruption was 1985).

After sorting ourselves out and finally handing over our laundry to the hostel cleaning service, (we had to transfer it to another bag in the process and felt we had to apologise profusely for the smell as we did so) we quickly headed to the main plaza for some much needed breakfast at around 11:30. We found a cafe on a stone balcony that stood above shops surrounding the beautiful plaza. Looking around we had views of the Cathedral, which forms one side of the plaza, and the lovely fountain in the middle surrounded by palm trees, flags and lovely flowers. All of this was made more lovely when we were serenaded by locals whilst eating, traditional dress, pan pipes and all. We then made our way back down to soak in the new city and explore.

We spent quite a bit of time taking photos around the busy plaza. In particular, we were hoping for a shot of the Cathedral with the volcano behind, you can see it from the ground but not quite as spectacularly as if you were a little higher. We spotted a rooftop terrace bar on our walk, so we may have to have a look into that later.

After lots of photo taking, we tried to have a look inside their cathedral but, unfortunately, we were not dressed appropriately. It was a very hot day but shorts and t-shirts are not acceptable, so we may have to come back another time.

We headed to the Monasterio de Santa Catalina instead, which has been described as a city within a city, and they are not wrong. It is huge! There are seven streets, all adorned with very pretty, usually red flowers and many many bedrooms and outdoor stone kitchens.

It was quite interesting and it is astounding to think that this will have been the whole life of the nuns that lived there, but in all honesty, after some time it seemed as though we were just seeing a lot of the same thing, mainly bedrooms with an outdoor kitchen, all very similar. There was an interesting section about Blessed Anna de Los Angeles, a nun who spent 70 years there against her parents wishes and who has since been beatified after the exhumation of her body. As well as this there were very intricate paintings on a lot of the outdoor arches which were interesting and quite pretty also. This and the scale of place, alongside the great views of the city and volcanoes from the roof, were probably the highlights.

After the monastery, we headed back to the hostel to sort ourselves out and do a bit of organising. Apparently, we figured out here that I don't recognise Rich from a side profile, I walked into the kitchen to boil the kettle and thought I was having a short conversation with a stranger massacring a mango. After a couple minutes of silence and kettle watching (it was on a hob) I turned to see Rich eating mango, which confused me greatly and I asked if it was him the whole time...it was and he was seriously offended haha!

Rob and Rich then had some hammock chill time...although they weren't really stretched far enough and so they didn't look all that comfy and ended up making their legs numb. I finally got the water to boil and had my first cup of tea in ages...I found some earl grey in Lima and finally got to have some! Whilst outside in the courtyard, and typically for Rob, after he had gone inside, a hummingbird appeared in the yard and hovered so close to Richard's head it made him jump. Such beautiful little things, and noisy too, they make a strange clicking/clapping sound. It soon hummed away though.

It started to get chilly then so we went inside to chill in the TV room for a bit and charge our stuff before the trip the next day. We were heading to Colca Canyon to see Condors hopefully, however, I had found out only earlier that day that you would get to 4900m during the drive, and be staying at 3600m overnight (more than 1000m more than currently). This was worrying me a bit with my lung history and the stories of people getting sick on the ride up didn't help.

We sat in the room chatting to a couple of young boys from South Africa who seemed to have spent forever travelling, however by the sounds of it, in style. This was explained when their dad came in to explain their future plans, not really backpacking as most of us would imagine.

After waiting for about a half an hour for Rich to join us, we went to find him and lo and behold he was in the room chatting to the three German girls who had arrived and were sharing our room. Surprise, surprise!

We eventually headed out to dinner and opted to try a couple of recommended restaurants, but both were full. Eventually, we settled on an Italian restaurant which seemed to have a Peruvian twist. Service was great, as was the food. Rich had alpaca and it tasted really good.

After dinner, we enjoyed a nice walk back through the lit up plaza and headed back to sleep. Except I couldn't sleep and just felt very anxious about the following days altitude. After a lot of talking, reading and tossing and turning I decided I would give the tour a miss. I would rather come back one day and do it after acclimatising, maybe even do the trek instead of the bus tour. I broke the news this morning to Rich and we decided he should still go as he was looking forward to it.

So, we have packed him off for a couple of days after much mother hen behaviour from me and now me and Rob are now setting off to dump our bags at a new hostel.Read more